1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the display of data in data tables, such as spreadsheets, presentation texts, etc. More particularly, the present invention relates to display of the header inscriptions of one or more columns in a data table.
2. Description of Related Art
It is often useful to represent data in the form of a data table. Conventionally, data tables include a plurality of cells arranged in horizontal rows and vertical columns. Each of the columns and/or rows typically contain a cell describing the content of the cells of the column and/or row, such as a parameter in a spreadsheet table, a time period, or geographical area in a table of a text or a presentation document.
The cells describing the content of each of the columns of the data table are often arranged in one row located in the first row of the data table, although they can also be located at the last row of the data table or at some other position within each of the columns. The description of the content of each of the columns is termed the header inscription.
A header inscription can take any of a variety of forms, such as alphabetic, numeric, alphanumeric, symbolic, or of some other form representative of the column contents. A header inscription can be of varying length, and is frequently of a different length from that of the contents of the cells within the column. In some instances, the header inscription occupies more horizontal space, e.g., horizontal width, than the contents of the cells within the column. When this occurs, the horizontal width of the header inscription often results in the column occupying a larger horizontal space in the data table than the contents of cells in the column require. If a data table is being viewed in a display area of fixed size, such as on a page or display screen, this results in a less than optimal utilization of the display area.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a conventional data table found in the prior art. As illustrated, the data table 110 may depict sales figures of a product in four different countries over a certain period of time. The rows represent years and the columns the respective countries.
As illustrated, the data table 110 contains rows 112_1 through 112_x, and columns 114_1 through 114_5. Each of the columns 114_1 through 114_5 contain a cell having a header inscription. For example, column 114_5 includes a cell 116 having a header inscription 118. In the present illustration, the contents of header inscription 118, “United Kingdom”, utilizes a greater horizontal width 120 than the largest of the contents of the cells in the column 114_5, horizontal width 122.
When data tables containing a large number of columns are to be viewed on a display, it may not be possible for all columns of the data table to be shown simultaneously on the display due to the fixed display size. To view all the columns in the entire data table, it may be necessary for a user to scroll the view of the data table in the horizontal direction. Although horizontal scrolling permits the earlier unviewed columns to be viewed within the display, it does not permit all the columns to be viewed on the display simultaneously, as some of the earlier viewed columns may now be unviewable.
The time and effort associated with scrolling through partial views of a data table is sometimes viewed as undesirable by users. Thus, many users attempt to reduce the horizontal width occupied by individual columns to simultaneously view more columns in the data table. As the width of the largest contents of a column cell is usually determinative of the column width, users attempt to locate ways to reduce the size of the contents of the cells.
One technique currently used to reduce the size of the header inscription contents of a cell is to locate and select the header inscription of a column and modify the text. As one example, a user would position a cursor, or other indicator, on the header inscription to be modified, and then select, such as by highlighting or clicking on the header inscription, the portion of the header inscription to be modified. The user would then relocate the cursor to a tool bar on the display screen and locate a formatting option, such as change font size, rotate text, wrap text, etc., to be applied to the selected header inscription. The user would then select the formatting option. This process can be repeated or other formatting options selected each iteration. In this example, the user must locate and select the desired header inscription to be modified, and then move to a tool bar to select a formatting option.
If a user is currently working in another portion of the data table, e.g., not at the header inscription, the user must leave the area of the data table in which he/she is working, and relocate the cursor to the header inscription to be modified, as well as to any associated tool bar needed to effect the modification. In large data tables, this can be very time consuming and disruptive to a user, as the current project in the data table must be interrupted and the cursor relocated to the header inscription in the data table. In some instances, this may require that the user scroll the data table vertically and/or horizontally to locate the desired header inscription.